The heart of our organization is practitioners who have advised some of the World’s most respected organizations over the past 20 years.
FOUNDER
ALEX MARQUEZ
Alex founded Propellerfish in 2009 and has spent the past 20 years helping complex organizations unlock their potential around innovation in the US, Europe and Asia.
Along the way, Alex has led projects in 25 countries for a mix of multinationals, governments, and social impact organizations.
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Those projects have resulted in a smart phone for the emerging middle class in China and India, a new line of confectionery for Mondelez in Europe, and an innovation partnership with Cisco which has delivered over $100 million in growth. Alex also built our partnership with the Grameen Foundation which helps design financial inclusion programs for bottom of the pyramid consumers in partnership with organizations like JP Morgan, Citi Foundation and Met Life.
After nearly 10 years in Asia, Alex is now based in our London office full-time..
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ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR
TIM WOOD
Tim joined Propellerfish in 2016 and leads our project management function that keeps increasingly complex projects running smoothly.
Prior to Propellerfish, Tim spent 15 years managing global transformation projects and problem-solving initiatives in Financial and Telecommunication multinationals.
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In that time, he held roles such as Global Head of HR Process Transformation which gave him a keen sense for how to manage complex initiatives and stakeholders in large organizations.
Since joining Propellerfish, Tim has worked on projects across 15 countries and for clients such as Meta, PayPal, Fastly, Shell, PepsiCo and Cisco Systems.
Global to the core, Tim has lived in the US, India and the UK. He is currently based in our London office.
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DIRECTOR
RICHARD MURKIN
Richard brings over 24 years of experience across strategy, innovation, organisational development and human insight to the projects we run at Propellerfish.
Prior to joining, he worked at several organisations on global clients across most sectors.
As a Director at ?What If! he lead projects from insight to proposition for clients in FS, pharma, FMCG, retail and energy.
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He also developed innovation strategies for clients including Bayer, ViiV Healthcare, Centrica, Heineken, BBC Worldwide, BT, Shell and Astra Zeneca. He developed and delivered new IP around innovation culture, including leadership, experimentation and training.
At Mind Gym, Richard was EMEA Head of Creative, overseeing a team of behavioural scientists developing programmes to help organisations unlock potential through behaviour change, learning and development.
Richard is based in our London office.
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CONSULTANT
SARA CLOSE
Sara approaches every project with a strong grounding in human centric thinking, a passion for getting the most out of the people around her and the sharp ability to translate insights into action.
Prior to joining Propellerfish, Sara spent 15 years working as a strategist in both the private and public sector.
She joined Propellerfish in 2020 and has since worked on a range of projects for organizations like Meta and Fastly focused on a breadth of topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence to employee experience.
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In a world of work from anywhere forever, Sara is based in Missoula, Montana.
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LEAD CONSULTANT
LULU CHIU
Lulu has spent the past 15 years helping businesses put human insight and design at the core of how they develop new products and services.
Lulu’s past experience includes time at Ideo, AKQA and Continuum Innovation where she left her mark on brands such as Nike, The North Face, Unilever and Tencent.
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At Propellerfish, Lulu currently works on projects for a broad mix of clients ranging from Meta to PepsiCo.
Originally from Hong Kong, Lulu spent 10 years in Shanghai before settling into Propellerfish London. She is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
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STRATEGIST
JON FORTUNATI
Jon is a multifaceted consultant whose skills straddle design and strategy.
For over 10 years, Jon has helped global organizations unveil unexplored opportunities and develop innovative products and services across Asia, Europe and America.
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From organic snacks and drinks for one of the largest food corporation in China, to robotic lawn mowers for the Northern European market. During his career at Continuum and as an independent consultant, he had the chance to work with clients of the likes of P&G, PepsiCo, Carrefour, Samsung and Haier, among others.
Since joining Propellerfish, Jon has helped a food and drink multinational invent new snack and drink categories, he has helped Cisco Systems driving up sales by supporting their customers in the digital transformation journey, and worked on several projects for tech, fintech and FMCG companies.
Jon has lived in China, Italy and the UK and and he is now based in our London office.
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PROJECt MANAGER (SINGAPORE)
DARSHINI PILLAI
Darshini has worked with Propellerfish since 2014 and a magician at making all of the details surrounding our projects seamlessly fall into place.
In her time at Propellerfish, Darsh has organised research in over 20 countries across projects for a range of companies including Meta, Cisco Systems, Shell, PayPal, and PepsiCo.
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Darshini is based in Singapore but regularly helps us manage projects around the world.
She will modestly downplay her language skills but between us, she’s fluent in English and Tamil (and is conversant in Mandarin).
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PROJECT MANAGER
MOYA KEENAN
Moya is a project manager at Propellerfish where she helps our team manage the logistics around complex global projects.
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A native Londoner, Moya is based in our UK office and helps us run projects across the globe.
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FINANCE DIRECTOR
WEI LENG POINTEN
Wei Leng heads up our Finance function, helping us keep Propellerfish growing and profitable.
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Wei Leng is based in London.
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FILM MAKER
JAHA BROWNE
Jaha uses film to put insights and opportunities into context.
Her work reminds teams that our projects are aimed at real people out in the world rather than theoretical personas in a document
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Jaha’s work has put humans at the core of how teams think at organisations like Pepsico, Meta and Shell. She also invests time in our internal thought pieces which allows Propellerfish teams to follow their own curiosity around emerging topics and questions our clients are not yet putting investment behind.
Jaha is based in our London office.
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